I started to stand from where I’d been kneeling when David offered me a hand. I took it, and he pulled me up, then forgot to release me.
“Finished?” I asked, the warmth from my earlier conversation with Mrs. Walker returning to my face.
Mr. Walker shook his head. “We still have to go over the roof and sweep it. David thought you might want to help with that though.”
“With the sweeping?” I furrowed my eyebrows. I’d climbed my fair share of trees in my lifetime, but never a roof. “I think that might be better left to the professionals.”
David gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ll help you. Have you ever been on top of a house before?”
“That isn’t something generally recommended.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t ask if it was recommended, I asked if you have done it.”
“No,” I said with a puff of air, for some reason feeling disappointed in myself.
He squeezed my hand. “You are going to love it.”
I scoffed, but the way his eyes sparked made me reconsider my laugh. He was serious—not only about me helping but also about his truly thinking I would like standing on a ladder leading to the top of the Walkers’ home. I glanced up at the roof. The ladder was on the other side, but I’d climbed at least that high before. A slight breeze caught David’s damp hair, teasing it, and the thought of standing near the top of the home, with the wind rustling my hair, made me think he was probably right. I would love it.
David must have seen the shift in my thoughts because he pulled me toward the house. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep you steady while you sweep, and Mr. Walker will hold on to the ladder like he did for me.”
I stumbled—what did David mean he was going to hold me steady? On the ladder? He was going to be on the ladder with me? For a man who had spent over an hour doing physical labor, he had a lot of energy. We were practically running through the Walkers’ home, and I couldn’t get out a protest.
He brought me to the base of the ladder and motioned for me to start climbing. Then he bent down, grabbed the brush he’d brought with him, and waited behind me.
“You are going to follow me?” This was like the oak tree all over again.
“Yes. I’ll be right behind you.”
I flushed. That was becoming a problem. “But my skirts ...”
“I can keep your skirts against the ladder. We will be perfectly respectable.”
“Somehow, I doubt my mother would think climbing a ladder to do labor is respectable.”
“What do you think?” His eyes met mine again, and this time, it wasn’t simply the joy of doing this work that made them spark. There was something else—something deeper. He wanted to share this love of his with me. He wanted me to see this side of him, the side he’d discovered and made for himself.
I swallowed. “I don’t actually care what Mama would think. I would like to see the world from the top of a roof you’ve thatched.”
The corners of his mouth lifted, and the world faded away behind that smile. My breath caught, but I don’t think he noticed the effect he had on me, because he simply put both of his hands at my waist, turned me around, and, with a bit of a push, said, “Up you go, then.”
David was true to his word and followed directly behind me, his free hand holding on to the side of the ladder at my waist and sliding up each time I took another step.
Mrs. Walker was going to absolutely love watching us.
“All the way to the top,” David said, his mouth near my shoulder. “And we will brush the debris down.”
I nodded and kept climbing, enjoying the feel of David’s body keeping me pressed safely into the ladder. When we reached the top, I stopped, unsure of what to do next. David had the brush, and I didn’t dare turn around to look at him. My only view was the top of the ladder and an up-close inspection of the roof’s thatch.
“Now what should I do?” I asked.
David took one more step so he was only one rung behind me, his chest warm against my back. “Here,” he said, handing me the brush. “It’s like sweeping. We have to clean up the mess I made earlier.”
It took some getting used to, but eventually, I relaxed enough to lift my chest away from the ladder in order to swing the brush up and then sweep it downward.
“Good,” David said, his words at the back of my exposed neck and a rush of heat flooding down my spine. I brushed faster. This was a terrible idea. My thoughts were misbehaving along the same lines that Mrs. Walker’s had earlier.
We reached the bottom of the roofline, and I stopped. “Thank you for letting me help,” I said. My voice sounded a bit too breathless for my liking, but that could be attributed to the work I’d just done. “It might be best if you finish the rest of the sweeping yourself.”
